New World Ghosts
by heypandora
Summary: Laurie, Dan — ﮦ They fight, but they'll never win.


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_It's 1985, November 15th._

A brown haired woman gives up the name Laurie Juspeczyk to become Sandra Hollis in a new world. She sees her mother for the final time, and gives up everything that binds her to that name. Blonde hair and a bad southern accent are her newest features, and she hopes these will help protect her and her companion's secret.

She will drop the accent in two days, though, when a man thinks she is mocking him in a patrol station and Dan has to apologize for her. She will not think it was that bad, but she will understand that she is better safe and wrong than dead, so she will drops it regardless.

She will not drop the name until she dies.

She hates it. All of it.

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_It's 1985, December 11th._

A blond haired woman named Sandra Hollis (once was Laurel Jane Juspeczyk but not anymore and never, ever again—not in this new moment and new world), lies in the bed of a cheap apartment in the first camps of the New York restoration team. It cost one third of their monthly staple, with food and cigarettes taking the rest.

It is far too late to be sleeping, as the sun shining in the middle of the sky—midday—though she has no reason to get up. Her only companion left for work thirty-five minutes ago, leaving her alone. He placed a opened a paper on the job section and left it on the table with some small hope that it would making her active, again—alive.

She never sees it; she sleeps until dinner, waking only to the smell of burnt toast but surprisingly well-cooked bacon and eggs.

She feels guilty. She's not sure for what.

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_It's 1986, January 11th_.

The still-new Sam Hollis accidentally calls out for 'Laurie' instead of his new wife, Sandra, but she doesn't reply regardless. It is the last time he calls her that name, even accidentally.

He grieves—for everything.

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_It's 1987, August 12th._

Sam Hollis helps clean the dead from the streets—the restoration teams are making progress. He whispers silent,_ I'm sorry, forgive me, I tried,_ to dead bodies he could not save. Always thirty-five minutes late, always—even in the dreams replayed in his head.

The team celebrates getting a street restored in record time, and they plan to go to the (new-opened) tavern near base camp, and they invite him along, but he can't go.

He apologizes, again and again, but no one left to accept them.

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_It's 1988, November 2nd._

Sandra and Sam Hollis laze in bed, along with the rest of the team repairing New York—a day of grief and remembrance for the once great city.

The volunteers restored a local radio station last week, their first broadcast is today.

They read out the names of the dead from A to Z, though Sandra only hears Laurel Jane Juspeczyk, Daniel Drieberg, Walter Kovacs and Denise Kem, a six-year-old that lived down the hall to her before she moved in with Jon.

The list isn't complete. The list will never be completed—a million bodies are being found every day around the world.

They mourn.

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_It's 1986, March 5th_

The still-new-but-settled Sandra Hollis attempts learning to sow, but she'll never be good at it. She gives up within a week.

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_It's 1986, March 15th_

They find someone reliable, someone underground (someone easy for Adrian to kill if he ever speaks the names Nite Owl and Silk Spectre, but they never say that out loud) to create and repair their costumes.

Nite Owl's repairs and upgrades are completed by March 17th. Silk Spectre's new costume is ready by March 21st.

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_It's 1986, March 29th_

They talked in hushed voices in crowded bars as to whether they can use Archie in public ever again.

They decide the streets are so filthy they don't need to descend from the sky to eradicate it. At least for the time being.

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I_t's 1986, April 1st_

They begin to fight.

But they'll never win.

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_postscript;_

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In the world, she's Sandra Hollis.

In the mask, she's _Silk Spectre_.

Under both, she's **Laurie Juspeczyk**.

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**Laurel Jane Juspeczyk** died in New York, 1985, November 2nd.

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She's a _ghost_.

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_NOTES:_

**1**. SO UM I LIKE WATCHMEN. :D

**2.** LAURIE OR SANDRA, DAN OR SAM FFFFFF GAH GAH GAH.

**3. **As always, fffff, canon-issue abound probably. I'm not the most paying-attention-to-canon person ever. I'm a movie!verse person, too. Don't look at me like that, I'm reading the comic. Most of it. (fffff Tales of the Black Freighter, I know you're symbolic and entwined to the story and everything but I _don't like you_. More Under the Hood plz.)

**4.** Edited 1/10/09 for errors.


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